What can we say about individuals who are atheists or agnostics, those who do not share the common tendency to believe in the world of the spirits and in some spirits that are greater than others and control our destiny? A century of research can guide us.

Those with no religious affiliation have been found to be younger, mostly male, with higher levels of education and income, more liberal, but also more unhappy and more alienatedfrom wider society. Such findings have been reported in the US, Australia, and Canada.

Some atheists have been raised without any religious teaching; others have chosen to reject what they have been taught as children. Those who have come from religious homes and given up religion have had more distant relations with their parents, and a commitment to intellectualism.

Irreligiosity is tied to greater political liberalism, and to being less prejudiced.

Radical students who were members of the students' Free Speech Movement at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1964 (which started the 1960s upheavals on American campuses), were more likely to come from families that were identified as Jewish, agnostic, or atheist.

The claim that atheists are somehow likely to be immoral or dishonest has long been debunked. Studies that looked at readiness to help or honesty showed atheists standing out, not the religious. When it comes to the more serious matter of violence and crime, ever since the field of criminology got started, and data collected of the religious affiliation of criminal offenders, the fact that the unaffiliated and the non-religious had the lowest crime rates has been noted.

Starting in 1925, LM Terman and his colleagues studied 1,528 gifted youth from California with IQ levels higher than 140 who were about 12 years old. Members of this group were followed up throughout life, and were found to be consistently irreligious. Studies on the religiosity of scientists and academics have shown consistently low levels of religiosity, and the prevalence of atheism. Moreover, the more eminent scientists were less religious than others.

In the 1990s surveys of working scientists and eminent scientists from 1914 and 1933 were exactly replicated. First, a random sample taken from American Men and Women of Science in 1996 showed that 60% were non-believers. Then a questionnaire was sent to 517 members of the United States National Academy of Sciences from the biological and physical sciences (that is, mathematicians, physicists and astronomers). Many members of the National Academy are Nobel laureates. The return rate was slightly over 50%.

The results showed that the percentage of believers in a personal God among those more eminent scientists in the US was 27.7% in 1914, 15% in 1933, and 7% in 1998. Belief in personal immortality was slightly higher: 35.2% in 1914, 18% in 1933, and 7.9% in 1998.

The findings demonstrate first, that the process of turning away from religion among the most eminent scientists has been continuing, and, second, that in the US, eminent scientists, with only 7% believing in a personal God, are at odds with the general population, where the corresponding percentage hovers around 90% in various studies.

What we are able to conclude about the typical atheist in western society today is that person is more likely to be a male and of higher education.

Can we speak about an atheist personality? A tentative psychological profile can be offered. We can say that atheists show themselves to be less authoritarian and suggestible, less dogmatic, less prejudiced, more tolerant of others, law-abiding, compassionate, conscientious, and well-educated. They are of high intelligence, and many are committed to the intellectual and scholarly life.